Like the new house in Kent. Not a cottage, but a real house, with a full admiral living nearby and several rich merchants too. Dulcie had assured him, “Nothing is too good for you, dear Thomas. You’ve worked for it, you deserve far more.”

Herrick sighed. Most of the money had been hers anyway. How had he ever managed to be so lucky, to find his Dulcie?

“Marines! At-ten-shun!”

A cloud of pipeclay floated above the stolid faces and black shakoes as the muskets banged to the present, and, as the air cringed to the twitter of the boatswains’ calls, Herrick removed his hat to the quarterdeck and to Wolfe, his towering first lieutenant, the most ungainly, but certainly one of the best seamen Herrick had ever met.

The din faded away, and Herrick looked at the side party with sadness. So many new faces to learn. But now he only saw the others who had died in the battle or were suffering the pain and humiliation of some naval hospital.

But Major Clinton of the marines was still here. And beyond his scarlet shoulder Herrick saw old Ben Grubb, the sailingmaster. He was lucky to have so many seasoned hands to weld the recruits and pressed men into some kind of company.

“Well, Mr Wolfe, maybe you can tell me why the admiral’s flag is aloft?”

He fell in step with the lieutenant with the two wings of bright ginger hair poking from beneath his hat like studding-sails. It was as if he had never been away. As if the ship had swallowed him up and the distant shore with its shimmering houses and embrazured batteries was of no importance.

Wolfe said in his flat, harsh voice, “The admiral came off shore yesterday afternoon, sir.” He shot out a massive fist and pointed at some newly coiled halliards. “What’s that lot? Bloody birds’-nests?” He swung away from the transfixed sailor and bellowed, “Mr Swale, take this idiot’s name! He should be a damned weaver, not a seaman!”

Wolfe added, breathing hard, “Most of the new hands are like that. The sweepings of the assizes, with a sprinkling of trained ones.” He tapped his big nose. “Got them off an Indiaman. They said they were free from service in a King’s ship. They said they had the papers to prove it too.”